Why did Alfred Hitchcock set so many films in Northern California? It was his home turf. The British director fell in love with the Bay Area while filming Daphne du Maurier”s “Rebecca” in Monterey County in 1939, and the Hitchcocks bought a ranch and vineyard in Scotts Valley the following year.

From that point on, he set more than half a dozen films in the greater Bay Area and even sneaked a few local sights into movies ostensibly filmed elsewhere. Here”s just a sampling:

“Rebecca” (1940): Hitchcock”s first U.S. film was inspired by the Daphne du Maurier novel, which was set in Cornwall. The scenes of Manderley were filmed on the Selznick Studios lot in Hollywood, but the cliffs of Monte Carlo, where Maxim de Winter meets his second wife, are actually Point Lobos State Reserve, near Carmel.

“Suspicion” (1941): The film was set in the fictional Tangmere-by-the-Sea in England, but the filming was done in Big Sur, with scenes carefully set to avoid glimpses of the Bixby Bridge.

“Shadow of a Doubt” (1943): Hitchcock turned the then-small town of Santa Rosa, population 13,000, into a studio lot for four weeks, filming at Railroad Square, the library, the Tower Theater and other locations.

“Vertigo” (1958): This iconic thriller was filmed at Big Basin, Mission San Juan Bautista and Cypress Point, along Carmel”s 17-Mile Drive, as well as numerous locations around San Francisco, including Fort Point, Mission Dolores, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Palace of Fine Arts and Ernie”s Restaurant.

“The Birds” (1963): This thriller was filmed in San Francisco”s Union Square, Bodega Bay and Bodega, with shoutouts — via the radio broadcasts the cast anxiously listens to as birds attempt to claw their way in — to Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz.

“Marnie” (1964): Location filming was done on the East Coast, where this psychological thriller was set, but according to Jeff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal, authors of “Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock”s San Francisco” (Santa Monica Press, 2002), the Connecticut train station scene was actually shot in San Jose”s Diridon Station.

“Family Plot” (1976): Hitchcock”s last film included scenes at the Fairmont Hotel and Grace Cathedral, which was called St. Anselm”s in the movie.